The Graveyard of the Hesperides
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4.7 • 26 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Life is sweet for Flavia Albia and her soon-to-be husband Faustus. But his new job as a building contractor runs into a problem: At the Garden of the Hesperides a barmaid went missing years before; now the workmen start unearthing her bones.
Albia takes on the task of finding out what happened. Five more skeletons are discovered. Despite the fact that nobody seems to know or care who died, violent attempts are made to stop her enquiries.
Soon Albia is exploring the world of Roman streetlife, where bars are brothels, workers lead brutal lives, foreigners are muscling in on the gambling syndicates, and extortion is commonplace. What's more there's little time to solve the mystery before the wedding day when Albia is expected to show Rome that her affair with Manlius is a much more than a casual fling. The gods, however, have other ideas...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Davis's fourth Flavia Albia novel (after 2015's Deadly Election), a straightforward whodunit set in Rome in 89 C.E., lacks the political backdrop of earlier installments in the series. The arresting opening sentence, "Everyone knew a dead barmaid was buried in the courtyard," refers to an eating house called the Garden of the Hesperides. Flavia's fianc , Manlius Faustus, has just bought a renovation business, and his first job, a holdover from the business's incompetent previous owner, is to redo the courtyard of the Garden of the Hesperides. When Manlius's workers uncover some bones, Flavia, among others, wonders whether they are the remains of Rufia, the missing barmaid. Flavia, an informer (the ancient Roman equivalent of a PI) who believes in justice above all else, sets out to identify the remains and solve a very cold case which becomes more complex after she finds evidence of a previously unsuspected crime. The leads are entertaining, but the resolution isn't one of Davis's best.
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